The Pilgrims Marino and Melanie - Part 2

Poppies were in full blloom in June

Walking
Walking is an excellent way to see beauty - both nature and manmade structures - at their best.

We did a guided tour of this impressive castle after our day's walk

The coat of arms on this building was impressive

Having a break on a sunny day in a hamlet

The Performance
Well, my italian isn't perfect, and so I ignored the couple of sentences in the pre-trip email that I couldn't quite understand.  Only after the trip did I realise the sentence read along the lines of 'Don't forget to bring along a costume for the annual performance, whose theme this year will be '1920s - Belle Epoque'.

One of the restaurants was decorated in belle epoque style, and so the annual post-dinner performance was scheduled here.  Apart from a brief tango danced with Melanie, I was luckily exempted from the main act - a can- can dance.  But Melanie? During rehearsal she started as a bit player, the next minute she was choreographing, and by the time of the performance she had been promoted to the diva out front!

I'm still not sure quite what to make of this performance.....

The three starlets of the performance

The polenta maker has won many awards for his polenta

The Polenta man
One day, instead of our usual sandwich lunch, lunch at a small family-run agriturismo was arranged.  So the bus drove us up a steep hill, where an antipasto platter of local cheeses and smallgoods was a delicious and welcome change.  Pasta was also good, but it was the main course that really delivered.  The proprietor made polenta in a massive copper pot, stirring constantly with an equally massive wooden paddle.  Enough to serve 60 people, the polenta was fluffy and tasty, and went down a treat with just a basic ragu sauce.

A large impressive church in the middle of nowhere

Churches

Well, it's a religious pilgrimage, and so inevitably we saw more churches in 12 days than we've seen in the last year.

Many beautiful churches, often with impressive belltowers, were found in the smallest of hamlets, and Renzo had cannily arranged for a local to open up many of these renowned churches for us.  Unfortunately, virtually all churches in out of the way places have to be locked when not in use, for reasons of theft or vandalism.

The baroque interior of this church was quite unexpected, and reminded us of Sicilian churches

Lucca - 75km to go
We're in the final stretch, we know we'll all finish, just 3 more days to go.

Interestingly, one of the signs points to the Santiago de Compostela, just 1970km away....

Us in front of Church of St Frediano

The finish at Lucca
On our final day, we walked just 9km before arriving in one of our favourite Lucca piazzas, Piazza San Frediano, so named after the famous church next to it.  This church also houses the mummy of Santa Zita.
 
Here, we were joined by the group's spiritual adviser Luigi, and then we all finished our pilgrimage by a slow walk through the Lucca streets, chanting the Hail Mary rosary, which by now, we knew in Italian.  There were many shoppers, particularly in Lucca's busiest shopping street, Via Fillungo, that stared open mouthed at our strange procession as we passed.




We arrived in San Giovannis church, where a formal ceremony was held, with the Archbishop of Lucca, Italo Castellani, the mayor of Lucca, Alessandro Tambellini and each of three mayors of nearby towns we'd walked through each making a speech.  Our group also handed over a handpainted staff to the Archbishop to thank him, both for meeting us and holding a private mass for us.  After the ceremony, we all walked to nearby Lucca cathedral where the mass was held.  Afterwards, the Archbishop was kind enough to shake the hands of each of us individually, and then posed for photos with us.

The mayor of Lucca, Alessandro Tambellini, speaking, flanked by 3 mayors of nearby towns and the Archbishop

The Archbishop of Lucca, just after the private mass

Final Thoughts
We'd been looking forward to the pilgrimage for almost a year, and it didn't disappoint - far from it.  While the views were great, the walking fun, the food delicious and the whole trip excellently organised, what really stands out is our fellow pilgrims.  They were friendly, interested in us, took the time to speak Italian slowly, and to point things out we might like.  It's this genuine friendliness that we'll remember as much as anything else.  Many thanks, fellow pilgrims!

The Pilgrims Marino and Melanie - Part 1

Background
On the 3rd of June, Melanie and I setout for a 12 day pilgrimage along the Via Francigena, an ancient religious pilgrims route that links Canterbury in England to Jerusalem, via France and Italy.  We walked with the Lucca branch of the 'Via Francigena Pilgrims' who we'd met at a food festival during 2012, when their president Renzo (a retired Alitalia pilot who flew the Rome to Melbourne route many a time) had been kind enough to invite us to become members and walk with them.

Bobbio (in Emilia Romagna) to Lucca (Tuscany) - 230km in 12 days, without any rest days, was more than a little daunting for us.  However, we felt better when we discovered we were staying mostly in hotels, and had a bus for our baggage, which also acted as a 'sag wagon' for some of the more strenuous legs.  Perhaps the promise of nightly four course meals with wine was the clincher for us - bring it on!






An Inauspicious Beginning
The bus pickup was at 8am, and we were almost 10 minutes late.We weren't concerned as in Italy, everyone seems to run about 15 minutes late.  Except pilgrims, it appears, they had all arrived, baggage stowed away, awaiting just us.  So the following discourse:
Renzo (on the bus microphone):  Aaaaah, the Australians have arrived, you are 10 minutes late.
Me:  But we're in Italy, which means we're really 5 minutes early!
Renzo: Hah! The Australians act like Italians, and the Italians act like Anglo Saxons.  First black marks of the trip go to the Australians!
Pilgrims on Bus: Cheers and applause




Bobbio
The bus arrives in Bobbio, which we pleasantly discover is a small charming town with a cute-as-a-button historical centre. We get to know some of our fellow pilgrims over our first dinner which is excellent.  Happily, it includes not 1 but 2 pasta courses, both of which are home-made, followed by a main course of roasted pork and potatos, and dessert. 

Also enjoyed was a guided tour of the town and the town's cathedral, which was founded by and is dedicated to an Irishman, Saint Columbus, who was a bit of a pilgrim himself.  Renzo has arranged with the local bishop for us to hold a mass to bless our pilgrimage in the underground sacristy which features a gorgeous vaulted ceiling. 

Mass in the cathedral sacristy

The Roman bridge just outside Bobbio

We're up before 7am the next morning, and after a quick Italian breakfast of cappuccino and a brioche at the local bar, we're walking by 8am.  We walk out of town to a 9th century Roman bridge, and it's only after crossing the bridge, and immediately being amongst lovely green countyside, that we really feel it:
We've started, we're on our long awaited pilgrimage.














The Walking
The scheduled 20km per day ended up being more like 15km, mainly on account of the slow walking pace.  The group has been walking about 250km each year in June for 10 years, and as they're almost all middle-aged or elderly, age is catching up to more than a few. At times, it's a tad frustrating walking at what is for us 3/4 pace, but this is small fry compared to the many wonderful dimensions of the journey. We walked about 7 to 8 hours each day, including lunch and breaks.

Each year, the group walks the next leg of the Via Francigena, so 2014 will be Lucca to Rome etc and in fact the group has already completed the entire walk from Canterury to Jerusalem, and is part way through the second time. Now that's impressive!

2012 has seen lots of rain in Italy, making for tricky river crossings.  Here, the group decides to de-shoe off and wade across.

Slowly does it - Nando and I help Francesco cross a makeshift bridge

Mario, Alfredo and I

 Emilia Romagna
The scenery in Emilia Romagna is surprisingly hilly, green and punctuated by occasional historical stone villages and hamlets.  We thought it woudl all be flat plains.

It's also a less populated area than our previous walks through Tuscany, which adds to our walking pleasure.

Sometime during each afternoon's walk, the spiritual leader begins a Hail Mary rosary, which is recited by whoever wishes to participate.  Naturally, it's all in italian, and while we don't know the words, it only takes a couple of days for us to learn them, given that a rosary contains about 60 Hail Marys.....

Wearing our Via Francigena member T-shirts

 The Via Francigena
The Via Francigena is well known in Italy and these guide boards can be found across the entire country.

It's not very well known outside Italy and France, as it's overshadowed by the now infamous Santiago del Compostela in Spain.

It is a well marked out route, based on the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sigeric the Serious, who in the 10th century travelled along it to Rome and took copious notes about his route and lodgings.








Official Business
 Walking is not the only goal or activity of the pilgrimage.  Renzo had arranged a number of meetings with local mayors of the towns we walked through, and here we met the mayor of xxx who inevitably, gave a speech.

Like all Italian mayors, for official occasions, an Italian tricolour sash is always worn across the body.

The blue xxx bears the official logo of the Via Francigena Pilgrims.  They're a national association, and our walking group is the Lucca chapter of the association.

Hungry pilgrims awaiting dinner

But what about the food?
With Melanie and I, it always comes back to food.

On the walk, breakfasts were of the Italian kind ie cappucino and a brioche, hardly food to walk on, but somehow it seemed to work. For lunches, we'd meet the bus at a predetermined place, a couple of tables and benches from the bus would be setup, and an informal lunch of bread, cheese, salami and  tomato would be served - along with wine of course - followed by a simple slice of cake for dessert.  Simple but adequate.

Dinner was another thing entirely.  Basically, it followed the same format of our first night in Bobbio - two pasta courses, always home made, and one was usually the specialty of the town we were in. Yes, even individual towns just 20km apart seem to have a specialty pasta/sauce!

Francesco, Mario and Melanie

   

To this day, I still don't know how we managed to eat two serves of pasta, and sometimes I even accepted a third helping.  Pasta courses were always followed by a main course which was almost always roast pork with roasted potatoes. This was washed down with as much house wine as required.  Dessert was usually simple; perhaps a tart, and finishing with coffee of course!

But it's the delicious pastas that we'll both remember. Interestingly, in Emilia Romagna, the pastas were always served in a butter-based sauce, while the day after we entered into Tuscany, the sauces changed to olive oil based.  And every pilgrim (they were all Tuscan) we asked which pastas they preferred, all chose the olive oil based - now that's parochialism in action.

Wine in Italy - 325 bottles and counting

An occasional post for wine enthusiasts....

Sicilian Wine
The words Sicily, wine and Greece are not usually found in the same sentence, but during a 10 day jaunt through parts of Sicily, this was the case.  Firstly, it's true that wine from Sicily doesn't have the best of reputations, and certainly there are hectolitres of wine that fall into the bulk wine, low quality category.  But what's exciting is that many newer producers have bought land and planted vineyards, particularly along the slopes of Mt Etna, where the altitude, terrain and climate are producing some of Italy's best new white wines.

But let's talk about Cerasuolo di Vittoria, which is the only DOCG wine in all of Sicily, made from a blend of Frappato grape and Nero d'Avola grape (in fact, we stayed in a rustic house 5km from the nondescript town of Avola, the ancient home of the Nero d'Avola grape).  One of the best, and certainly interesting, producers is called Cos.  Fascinated with ancient winemaking practices, the three young winemakers decided to ferment their wine in amphoras, those clay jars used by the ancient Greeks.  I believe that using the amphoras isn't allowed under DOCG rules, so they make 2 wines, the DOCG wine, fermented in concrete tanks, and the other non-DOCG wine fermented in amphoras!

Cos
Cerasuolo di Vittoria 2010
18 euros
13%

Even the shape of the bottle is unusual, it's the bottle shape one usually sees in fortified wines!

We tasted this DOCG version over a wood fired BBQ of pork chops and grilled vegetables. While I didn't take tasting notes, I remember the pale red transparent colour, cherryfruit  and floral aromas and a light to medium bodied palate.  

Overall, it's a well-balanced wine in an easy to drink, uncomplicated style.











Vino di casa - What we're drinking at home...

Terre di Matraja
Tuscan Coast IGT Rosso
8 euros (winery discount)
13%
 
I must confess a conflict of interest - the winemaker Mirko, is in my recently finished winetasting class.  On an early spring day with plenty of sunshine, we had a class excursion to this winery in the Lucca hills, and this predominantly sangiovese-heavy blend is the workhorse of the winery.  Funnily enough, much of the class wasn't a fan of the wine, whilst I enjoyed the deep purple hue, heavily perfumed nose and honest rustic-ness of the wine.  It was no surprise to learn the vineyard was organically managed.

A few days later, my dozen order arrived on the doorstep - many thanks Mirko!










 .....and Something Better
 

Il Bandito 2011 Riesling DOC
10 euros
13%

Technically, this wine doesn't really belong in the 'something better' category, but both Melanie and I enjoyed it so much, it gets a mention here. Purchased from near Pavia, 100km south of Milan, where I was so excited to stumble across my first Italian riesling, as it's not a commonly grown variety here.  Near Pavia, riesling has it's own DOC appellation, so I asked a friend to choose me a quality example.

Il Bandito (the Bandit) is light yellow, with aromas of pear and honeysuckle.  On the palate, it is not as dry as Clare Valley rieslings, perhaps lacking acid but with a flavour spectrum of melon, pear and florals.  It has a pleasing viscosity and fullness that suggests some maceration on skins if not aging in large barrels.




 * 325 bottles and counting.... is the number we've consumed at home (excluding restaurants) since arriving on 12 April 2012

My Mum and Allan's visit

The visitors begin ...

Having returned from Sicily late April, we managed to fit in a visit from our friend Liz who is living in Rome, followed by Angelina a work colleague from Sydney, with just enough time to change the bed linen again before heading to Venice airport to meet my parents.

Aperitivo with lovely Liz

Aperitivo with Angelina

 

And the tour begins …..

Tasting at Real Collegio

Marino being a regular burner of toast, I thought it important to mention to him prior to mums arrival her utter loathing of the smell of burnt toast. Day One, after 7 hours driving to and from Venice we kick off with breakfast and lots of talking (of course), it’s been over 12 months since we’d seen each other!!! After a considerable amount of time I ask Marino where is Allan’s toast he was preparing earlier? 
Oh Dio!!! Yes, you guessed it – it’s under the grill – in cinders!! And it’s only hour 1 of day 1!!

I did mention he’s a regular toast burner.

A little torta for dolce!

We began our guided tour of Lucca with a lap of the infamous wall, a great way to orient oneself with the city. My mum immediately fell in love with ‘our’ city as we proudly showed Lucca off, and her and Allan quickly adapted to the daily groove of 2 laps of the wall by bike followed by coffee at our local bar. I proudly showed them off and introduced them to anyone and everyone we bumped into. The local fruit and veg shop owners, my friend Stella – we got around.

 

Meeting the locals

Thursday night mum joined me for a majolica ceramics painting class in Montelupo, everyone was most impressed with her ability with a brush as she secretly reminisced her old days of folk art.

 

 

 

Capraia

For our first weekend we joined a CAI (Club Alpino Italiano) trip to the tiny Tuscan island of Capraia. Our CAI friends were very excited to have 2 extra Australians on board. After a rather choppy 2 ½ hour crossing we arrived at the port. Here we checked into our hotel (a family room – ha ha) and set off for a 5 hour walk. I was not expecting mum or Al to join us but mum is always ready for a challenge; she strapped on some walking shoes and off we trotted. Al opted for an afternoon of relaxing in the sun. 

Mum resting her weary feet

Marino with his feet up

Me amongst the wild flowers on Capraia

Our following week was filled with various trips to some of our favourite destinations. Pisa, the villas of Marlia, the town of Pietrasanta (a personal favourite of mine) and a tour of a Carrara marble quarry. 

 

Playing tourists in Pisa

The Italian garden at Villa Grabau

The Devils bridge – Borgo a Mozzano

Marino and I have been wanting to do this tour since we’d admired the views of the marble mountains from our many walks in the Apuane Alps. Our marble tour began with being kitted out in a fluoro safety vest and plastic hard helmet, that’s Italian OH&S for you. We then all piled into the back of a jeep and were trucked up to the top of the mountain. I’d completely forgotten Al’s vertigo – this was not a pleasant journey for him. At the top we all piled out and walked amongst the many trucks ferrying massive blocks of marble up and down the mountain - it was a workday after all. We were only 100m or so from all the action. An amazing sight, which words fail to describe.

Cutting up a marble mountain

OH&S on the marble mountain

The view from the marble mountain

 

 

Cooking Class

 

Look what I made!

Back in Lucca, mum and I did a day’s cooking class at Hotel Carignano, where I’d previously done a class. This time we learnt pasta making and pasta sauces. I think we made 6 different types of pasta and accompanying sauces. We then sat down to a late lunch to sample each one. Although I hardly had room for it, the chocolate, pear and ricotta ravioli with the strawberry sauce was my favourite. 

Sampling the days work

Mmm …. Chocolate ravioli

 

 

A health story

I am proud to say that Marino and I have remained pretty healthy throughout our time in Italy with only the odd mild cold between us, so no need to visit the doctor – phew! Unfortunately Mum picked up a nasty cough somewhere between Australia and Lucca which turned into a chest infection, so off to the doctors with her - there went my plan of staying clear of the Italian medical system. We headed off on our bikes to our appointment, I am acting as interpreter which given my knowledge of the body parts in Italian I thought I’d be ok. Wrong! But we did manage to get the message across thanks to a few hearty coughs from mum. The doctor then proceeds to inform me of the treatment he's prescribing that I’ll need to administer. When the list ends after the 5^th type of medication I’m slightly worried. We head to the farmacia (pharmacy) and basically cleared the shelves!! The pharmacist again explains what I need to do. When I see the box hypodermic needles I’m really worried.  Finally after a demonstration by the local nurse on how to mix the drugs using the first needle then mix a further drug before changing needles, it was then over to me to play nurse Betty for the next 9 mornings injecting my mother in her buttocks! Thankfully, the injections did the trick and the infection cleared.

Sardegna

Sardegna (Sardinia) has been high on our list of places to visit whilst in Italy so it made perfect sense to book a trip while my parents were here. Pisa airport being just down the road, and good old Ryanair have cheap direct flights to this island.

We set off on a Saturday afternoon after a morning tour of the Lucca antique market. The antique market occurs only once a month, and our tiny town is filled with an assortment of furniture, antiquities and general bric a brac. The town is almost unrecognisable as the piazzas and narrow streets are spilling with all kinds of ‘stuff’. 

Mum and Al enjoying the Antique Market

 

The unrecognisable city of Lucca

So much stuff, that we somehow managed to lose Allan, who was not particularly happy when he finally found his way home. Sorry Al, it was a misunderstanding!!!

Finally we arrived in Sardegna and made the 2 hour drive north to our apartment in the cute and colourful town of Santu Lussurgiu.

 

 

It didn’t take long to work out that there was some kind of horsey thing going on in this town. There were these amazing 3 dimensional horse paintings on the walls of various buildings. After a quick chat to the local barista the story takes shape. The ‘Sa Carrela e Nanti’, is a horse race held every February during Carnival. The race is run through the town, in and around the steep roads, with the riders masked and riding in pairs. There’s another part to the story about a chicken – but that kind of got lost in translation.

One morning on our way to the bar for our morning coffee we noted that the local church appeared very busy and there are women piling out of the church all with handfuls of beautiful roses. Of course we have to go in and see what’s going on. And glad we did - we were each given a long stemmed rose - all of which appear to be home grown - and there are buckets full of them at the foot of the Madonna and child. Yes, it’s Saint Rita’s day. 

The blessed!

We’d never heard of Saint Rita or that she even had a saint's day! A quick google and we now know that Rita was an Italian Augustinian num, widow and saint. Rita is known to be the patroness for abused wives and mourning women. Not sure what that means about all the women of Santu Lussurgiu in the church that morning, but the story of the rose is told that near the end of her life, Rita was bedridden at the convent. A cousin visited her and asked her if she desired anything from her old home. Rita responded by asking for a rose from the garden. It was January and her cousin did not expect to find anything due to the weather. However, when her relative went to the house, a single blooming rose was found in the garden and her cousin brought the rose back to Rita. I do love a story of a saint and accompanying miracle. The other miracle is that when we got back to Lucca I realized that the print of the saint we have hanging in the entry hall is none other than Rita!!

The men, just being Italian …..

We spent our week exploring the province of Oristano and discovering the Nuraghi of Sardegna. The Nuraghi are ancient stone buildings developed during the Nuragic Age (between 1900 to 730 BC). There is no consensus on what the functions of these structures are, conical towers of stone on the outside and shaped like a beehive on the inside - we were fascinated by them.

 

Mum and Marino

discovering the Nuraghi

The Santu Lussurgiu locals were extremely friendly and chatty, by the end of our week we were on first name basis with Matteo the butcher, Rita from the local supermarket, and of course the barista at the local bar had our coffee order almost ready before we sat down! The weather was unseasonably cold for May, and everyone we met apologized for it!!

On our last morning before heading back to Cagliari for our return flight, we were invited to inspect the house of an English woman we’d met at the bar earlier in the week. She had just settled on her property, a 3 storey terrace with 2 balconies and a kooky indoor pizza oven all for just €20,000. She was about to begin her renovations, which were desperately needed. It got us all thinking about finding a little property of our own in Sardegna!

With only 4 more days in Lucca before Mum and Al departed for their trip to Venice and onwards, we just managed to squeeze in another trip to Pittarello, the fabulous shoe supermarket.

Pittarello – the shoe supermarket

3 days later, their train pulled out of the station at 2.30pm and by 5.00pm that same day we were greeting our next guests. Hello Billie and Ken!